Abstract

We show that light can be used as a lens to focus a collimated neutral atomic beam to submicron dimensions during deposition onto a substrate. We have used an optical standing wave at 589 nm as an array of cylindrical lenses to focus a perpendicular sodium beam into a grating on a substrate, with a periodicity of 294.3\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.3 nm. This result is the first direct evidence of submicron focusing of atoms by light, and represents a fundamentally new scheme for submicron lithography.